Public Bill Committee

[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair]

Nicholas Winterton: I welcome hon. Members to the first sitting of this Public Bill Committee, which I am sure, will be conducted in an orderly and good-humoured manner.
Before we begin, I have some domestic announcements. Ever conscious of Members comfort, I am happy for them to remove their jackets, should they wish to do so. Please ensure that mobile phones, pagers and other electronic gadgets are turned off or switched to silent mode during Committee meetings.
Members are reminded that there is a money resolution in connection with the Bill, copies of which are available in the room, on the table to my left. I also remind Members that adequate notice of amendments should be given. To be eligible for selection at a Tuesday sitting, Amendments must be tabled by rise of the House on the previous Thursday. For a Thursday sitting, amendments must be tabled by the preceding Monday. As a general rule, my co-chairman, Mr. Cook, and I will not call starred amendments.
Not everyone is familiar with the procedures for taking oral evidence in Public Bill Committees, so it might be helpful if I explain briefly how we will proceed. The Committee will first be asked to consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. That debate is limited to half an hour. We will proceed to a motion to report written evidence and a motion to permit the Committee to deliberate in private in advance of the oral evidence, which I hope we can take formally. Assuming that the second motion is agreed, the Committee will sit in private for a short time, after which witnesses and members of the public will be invited back into the room and we will start to take evidence.
If the Committee agrees to the programme motion, we will hear oral evidence in this weeks sittings, which I shall chair, and revert to the more familiar clause-by-clause, line-by-line scrutiny next week, when Mr. Cook will join us.
I call the Minister to move the programme motion.

David Hanson: I beg to move,
That
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 am on Tuesday 26 January) meet
(a) at 4.00 pm on Tuesday 26 January;
(b) at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 28 January;
(c) at 10.30 am and 4.00 pm on Tuesday 2 February;
(d) at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 4 February;
(e) at 10.30 am and 4.00 pm on Tuesday 9 February;
(f) at 10.30 am and 4.00 pm on Tuesday 23 February;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table
TABLE

Date

Time

Witness
Tuesday 26 January
Until no later than 12.00 pm
Police Federation of England and Wales; Jan Berry (Independent Reducing Bureaucracy Advocate)
Tuesday 26 January
Until no later than 1.00 pm
Association of Chief Police Officers; Manchester Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership; Manchester City Council; The Standing Committee for Youth Justice
Tuesday 26 January
Until no later than 5.30 pm
Association of Chief Police Officers; Linda Bowman
Tuesday 26 January
Until no later than 7.00 pm
Liberty; GeneWatch UK
Thursday 28 January
Until no later than 10.25 am
Wiltshire Police; Refuge; Fawcett Society; Womens Aid Federation of England; National Centre for Domestic Violence
Thursday 28 January
Until no later than 2.30 pm
The Automobile Association; British Parking Association; Local Government Association
Thursday 28 January
Until no later than 4.00 pm
Home Office
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 39; Schedule; Clauses 40 to 46; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 8.00 pm on Tuesday 23 February.
After some discussion with both Opposition parties before and during the sitting of the Programming Sub-Committee, we agreed the order in which the witnesses will come before the Committee. At the session this afternoon until 5.30 pm, we were to have had Mrs. Linda Bowman, as well as representatives of the Association of Chief of Police Officers. However, Mrs. Bowman informed the Committee Clerk and me yesterday evening that, unfortunately, because of family commitments, she is not able to attend, so this afternoons first panel will consist solely of ACPO representatives. I believe that there has been agreement to this and I hope that the Committee accepts it.
I look forward to serving under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas, and that of Mr. Cook. I have served under you both before and it is fair to say that we have got on fine; I am sure that we will do so again in this Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.(Mr. Hanson.)

Nicholas Winterton: Copies of memorandums that the Committee receives will be made available in the room.

Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.(Mr. Hanson.)

The Committee deliberated in private.

On resuming

Nicholas Winterton: We will now take oral evidence from the Police Federation and Jan Berry. For the record, will you both introduce yourselves to the Committee?

Paul McKeever: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. My name is Paul McKeever and I am the chairman of the Police Federation. We represent the 140,000 police officers from the ranks of constable to chief inspector.

Jan Berry: Good morning, Sir Nicholas. My name is Jan Berry and I used to be the chairman of the Police Federation. It is a first today for the two us to be sitting next to each other. I am now the reducing bureaucracy in policing advocate and was appointed by the Home Secretary in October 2008.

Nicholas Winterton: Before calling the first member of the Committee to ask a question, I remind all hon. Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill. We must stick strictly to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has already agreed. I hope that I do not have to interrupt in mid-sentence, but I will not hesitate to do so if need be.

Q 11

Douglas Hogg: First, I declare an interest as a practising barrister, practising in the criminal courts.
My questions are for either of our two witnesses and are about clause 1 and searches. I had the advantage, many, many years ago, of being a special constable, so I have carried out searchesnot very competently, but I have done so.
First, the Bill deletes the obligation to obtain the name and address of the person questioned. That rather surprises me. I should have thought that you needed their name and address. Secondly, the ethnicity of person to be searched is to be recorded as they themselves describe it. I would have thought that that gives rise to the possibility of some rather offensive questioning. Might it not be better if Bill provided for ethnicity as perceived by the constable? That would avoid the necessity for questions on the point. May I have your comments on both those matters?

Paul McKeever: We in the police service have wrestled with that conundrum for some time, ever since the inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, when stop-and-search was looked at rigorously. Yes, we think there is a real conundrum there. Somebody stopped could describe themselves as being of one type of ethnicity, when clearly, to the person who is speaking to them, they are not. We recognise that problem. How you get around it has never been resolved to my satisfaction, but we have to trust that common sense will prevail.
It is also important to recognise that you are dealing with human beings. It is not just about filling the form out; it is the human interaction you have with the individual you stop that is most important. That is something that we often forget when we talk about stop-and-search. We are so focused on the process that we forget that it is the interaction that we are having that is the most important. If that interaction goes well, there will not be a problem in terms of person a describing their ethnicity.

Q 2

Douglas Hogg: But if it goes badly?

Paul McKeever: If it goes badly, clearly there could be a problem. It is one that is left hanging in the air.

Q 3

Douglas Hogg: So you would have no particular objection to my suggestion?

Paul McKeever: No, I do not.

Q 4

Douglas Hogg: Is that true of Jan Berry as well?

Jan Berry: I think so. A lot of front-line police officers in meetings that I have held with them over the last couple of years have identified the confrontational nature of asking the question, How do you describe your ethnicity? It can pose a problem.

Q 5

Douglas Hogg: What about name and address? We seem to be at one so far.

Jan Berry: I think it depends on the circumstances. I do not think you need to record that for every single search. It is a question of proportionality. I agree with Pauls observation about a lot of focus being on paperwork and process as opposed to the interaction that might go on. We also confuse intelligence gathering with a stop-and-search form. If you are intelligence gathering, clearly you would need to be able to identify the individual you are speaking to.

Q 6

Douglas Hogg: But if you do not have the name and address, if there is a subsequent complaint it is difficult to relate A to B, is it not?

Jan Berry: Because you are not required to complete that, it does not mean that you would not necessarily gather that information. That is why you have to differentiate the process of stop-and-search and any other intelligence gathering, which might include stop-and-search, where you probably would need that detail.

Q 7

Douglas Hogg: I do not want to keep banging on, Sir Nicholas, but may I follow up that one point? Do either of you have any problem with my suggestion that the record should include name and address?

Paul McKeever: It is certainly not a huge problem to us. It makes sound common sense. However, there are occasions, as Jan says, where it is not absolutely necessary. As a good young constable patrolling on the other side of the river over in Lambeth, I knew pretty much who the villains I was dealing with were and I did not have to ask them for their name and address. That is how it should be. There are occasions when you already know who you are dealing with. Could it cause problems? Of course it could, yes.

Q 8

Nicholas Winterton: You have satisfied Mr. Hogg for the moment. Now that we have broken the ice with the involvement of our most experienced lawyer, I am going to invite you both to make a brief opening statement on your view of the Bills content, which we will start debating after taking evidence from witnesses. Mr. McKeever, would you like to make a brief opening statement about your and the Police Federations view of the Bill?

Paul McKeever: Yes, we think that there is some good common sense in the Bill in relation to stop-and-search and other aspects. There are no major new pieces of business in the Bill as we see it, but there is a lot of tidying up and addressing of tangential problems that we in the police service deal with. We are happy with it; there is nothing that we are directly or absolutely opposed to, and we are quite open to the changes that are being suggested. Perhaps some minor adjustments could be made here or there, but generally we are fine with it.

Q 9

Nicholas Winterton: I hope that, during this mornings questioning, the areas that you are a little concerned about will reveal themselves. Jan Berry, would you like to make an opening statement?

Jan Berry: My viewpoint centres on the bureaucratic burden that the Bill might impose on front-line officers. Obviously, the stop-and-search provisions aim to reduce the bureaucratic burden, which has to be welcomed, with the proviso that I would still expect police officers to be collecting and collating intelligence. I would not want them to see the lack of requirement to record details as a reason not to collect intelligence. That could relate to about 880,000 stops, so there is potential for a great reduction in bureaucratic burden.
On the remainder of the Bill, it seems to me that some bureaucratic burden could be added. I am not sure how the Bill will actually assist in some of the areas such as gang violence and domestic violence beyond what the police service can already do.

Q 10

Alison Seabeck: I have a rather simple question on the back of Pauls comments. How do you deal with young people who stand in front of a police officer and say, Im white Irish, when they are clearly notthey might be black Caribbean or something else? You can just imagine young people sending messages to one other on Twitter saying, This has been introduced; tell the police youre something youre not, just for the hell of it. What does a police officer put in that column?

Paul McKeever: I think you answer the question with your question. What do we do? It is not answered and it is a problem for us. Clearly, that message will get around and it could cause us some problems in interactions with young people on the street. Let us be absolutely clear: most young people are great. We do not have a problem with most young people and I think that over the past few years there has been a bit of a demonisation of young people. We do not talk about middle-aged or old people in the same way as we tend to talk about young people. Most young people I came across were good, decent folk. It is only a small minority that we are going to have problems with, so we need to put that in context from the word go.

Jan Berry: I think there is a provision such that, where it is quite clear that there is a total difference between the ethnicity you are being told and what you can see, you have the opportunity to have a discussion about it, depending on the circumstances; or there are provisions where police officers can give their own view of what the ethnicity is. However, as Paul rightly says, it does cause some confusion.

Q 11

Alison Seabeck: But if this is being recorded via electronic means, which tend to be logical and require you to say certain things in certain spaces, that does not give an officer flexibility.

Jan Berry: You are absolutely correct. On the 16 different classes of ethnicity, you would not have the opportunity to put another class.

Q 12

Tom Brake: I do not want to labour the ethnicity point, but what advice do officers currently get on establishing peoples ethnicity, if they are doing a stop-and-search and filling in the form themselves?

Paul McKeever: It comes down to common sense, I think. You have to look at who you are dealing with in that social interaction. I do not think that there is any dedicated instruction given to officers on that. It is left to their own observations and common sense.

Q 13

Tom Brake: One point that I wanted to follow up in what Mr. Hogg said is the matter of name and address not being required. Jan Berry, you said that you would, in any case, expect officers to collect additional information. What is your expectation? Would you assume that, perhaps in the majority of cases, officers would collect names and addresses, even if stop-and-search was changed so that was not required?

Jan Berry: I think it is about the term a requirement to collect a name and address. If you need to record who you stopped and why you stopped them, because of what was going on in the area, which may be a particular hot spot, or there is intelligence about other matters or for a specific purpose, then that is why you need to record the names and addresses. However, I am not sure that there is a requirement for the name and address for every search.

Q 14

Tom Brake: Can I pursue that line? We know that the number of stops and searches that do not lead to an arrest is, I believe, 90 per cent. Do you feel that the percentage of stops and searches that do not lead to further action is a problem? To cut that percentage, can more work be done on the training provided to officers on what constitutes reasonable suspicion?

Paul McKeever: That is a fair suggestion. We all know that some officers are very good at targeting under stop-and-search, so perhaps their intuitive ability could be inculcated into the rest of the police service. Having been on the streets for many years, I know that it is very difficult to say what will cause you to stop a particular individual or what nuances you are picking up from them. It is a difficult thing to pass on to other officers. We are very good at instructing officers on the law and on process, but not so good at passing on the street skills and human skills of picking up those signals and signs. There is some merit in what you say about trying to pass understanding of those signs and signals on to officers from those who do it very well. Some officers are excellent.

Jan Berry: To add to that point, Paul made the point earlier about the interaction. There is no doubt that there has been some really good experience in the Metropolitan police force area and other areas, where particular crime hot spots have been used, better training is given to officers and experience is shared between them. That has demonstrated a better quality stop-and-search in the first place and better outcomes. There is an argument that if you improve the training for officers, give them the opportunity to practice that skill and have far better intelligence about crime hot spots and where stop-and-search can be used effectively, it provides a better quality of search and better outcomes.
To go back to your earlier point about how you train people to identify ethnicities. There is a code for ethnicities. There are 16 different ethnic origins that police officers have to choose from.

Nicholas Winterton: I call Andrew Rosindell, who is the shadow spokesman.

Q 15

Andrew Rosindell: All of us want less bureaucracy and to see the police able to do their job more effectively without being bound up in paperwork and red tape, and having to record information that is of no use. Perhaps Mr. McKeever could answer first. Do you believe that the Bill goes far enough to reduce the burdens on the police? Is it necessary for the police to record so much information? Is it better to let them decide what is relevant and what may be useful for intelligence, rather than have such a prescribed way of doing things?

Paul McKeever: There is definitely merit in the last part of your questionin allowing us more discretion in what we do and do not record. In terms of whether the Bill goes far enough, I think it is a step in the right direction. It is showing the right way forward in trying to reduce the bureaucratic burden. A lot of bureaucracy, as Jan will be able to tell you better than me, is generated within forces anyway. Although we are very good at following the quantitative, measuring approaches, what matters to the public is not the quantity of what we do, but the quality. It is no accident that we have inspectors and superintendents in the police service. They actually used to inspect and superintend what those under their control did. We have lost that to some degree. The quality of what officers are doing seems to be less important to those in command than the quantity, and we have to get away from that. When I ask the question, officers never say that they have had letters of thanks about the way they have collated the statistics on something they have dealt with. However, they have had plenty of letters of thanks about the way they have dealt with individuals and the social interaction they have undertaken, whether reporting a crime, or perhaps even dealing with something on the streets.

Q 16

Andrew Rosindell: So putting more trust in the police constable dealing with an incident and letting him or her decide what is relevant in the information they record would be a much simpler, less bureaucratic way of dealing with things?

Paul McKeever: It isit is a balance, though. I am very strongly in favour of allowing officers to use their discretion, but you have to have some regulation or rules to make sure that they do not step outside what is acceptable. There has to be something, but it has to be fairly loose to allow discretion, because every stop and every interaction will be different. We cannot prescribe what they must do in each of those stops. So, yes, I think there is great merit in what you say.

Jan Berry: To add a little to that, the point that Paul makes with regard to accountability is absolutely right. It is about proportionate accountability. Left to everybodys discretion, you have to have a framework within which officers work. About a year ago, the rules changed for stop-and-account, with a considerable reduction in the amount of detail needing to be taken for a stop-and-account, as opposed to stop-and-search. Of the 44 forces where that is availableI think one of them is the British transport policeonly 13 forces are actually doing what was intended to reduce the bureaucracy. Fifteen are using a reduced form and 15 are still doing exactly the same as they were before. Even with a change in direction for stop-and-account, some of the benefits that could have accrued are not yet being accrued. Some of the reasons are around technology. Some of the reasons are around chief officers decisions on what they want their officers to record.

Q 17

Jim Dobbin: To follow Mr. Rosindells line of questioning, we all agree, even from the statements that have been made, that one of the aims of the Bill is to help reduce bureaucracy and allow the police more time to do other things. Have you any hard and fast statistics, so that you can calculate just how much extra time your officers will have? Subsequently, what cultural changes will be required in the force to apply that thinking?

Paul McKeever: I think the cultural changes are the most important. You can chop away at different forms and different pieces of paperwork, but you need to change the ethos and culture in the police service. Over the years, in recent times especially, we have grown the bureaucracy unnecessarily. We have to stop that and get back to what we should be doing: dealing with individuals out on the streetvictims of crimein a proper way and giving them the time they deserve, rather than focusing on the quantitative approach as we have in the past. It goes right across the police service from how we reward chief officers. What motivates them in the work that they want done? Why are they recording so much of this information? What is the driving force behind it? Some questions need to be asked. What makes chief officers go towards this unnecessaryas many officers see itrecording and collating of statistics, facts and information? Is it necessary? A lot of us say, No, it is not. We have gone too far. We are there for the public; we are not there for the statisticians and collators.

Jan Berry: I will start with the cultural side. It is enormously difficult to change a culture. Changing culture is complicated. There are a lot of police officers whose foundation of learning and policingtheir experiential learning on the streethas been about stop-and-search and qualitative assessment. So now when we come along and say, We want you to use a little bit more common sense about who you stop and search, and how you record it, it will take a little bit of time to introduce.
The benefits and how they can be used are particularly important. There is no doubt that you will have to record less on the street; in some of the early pilots, about 10 or 15 per cent. of time was saved. The interaction on the street should not really be any different, but about 10 per cent. of time could be saved from recording on the street. Then, of course, you have the knock-on effect on everybody else who handles that information all the way through the system. That is where considerable savings can be used. How you use that additional time is extraordinarily difficult to capture, but I think that police forces need to explain far better to local communities their tactics on stop-and-search and stop-and-accountwhat they provide and what the police are now able to do differently that they were not able to do before in the time that has been freed up.

Q 18

Robert Flello: I have a couple of points following those questions and answers. The first is on officers who are using the powers at the moment and the statistic that 90 per cent. of stops do not yield anything. What work is done with local commanders on the ground to analyse the officers concerned? Has analysis been done and has it been found that officers may have been in the job for a long time and therefore it is a cultural thing that needs changing? Or is it that officers who have only been in the job a short time may be more prone to stops where nothing comes of it? What is your experience of that?

Jan Berry: My experience is that insufficient analysis is actually undertaken. If you have all those data, you need to use them intelligently. I am not convinced that happens in all places. Certainly, if you have an officer who conducts 100 searches and, of those 100 searches, 80 result in arrests and in a number of offences being convicted, you would say that was very productive. If you have an officer who undertakes 100 searches and only one of them ends up in an arrest and a subsequent court appearance, you might question how they are using the power. I would want a little more intervention by front-line supervisors. What I am hearing from first-line supervisorssergeants and inspectorsis that many of them do not feel able, because they do not have the time, to have the type of intrusive supervision that is necessary. The challenge is to free up sufficient time to give them the opportunity to undertake the analysis you talk about.

Q 19

Robert Flello: Paul, do you have any comment on that, or does it tie into your earlier comments? You were talking about inspectors not being able to inspect and about superintendents. Is there anything you want to add?

Paul McKeever: Very much so. The information we are getting back from sergeants on the front line of supervision is that, as Jan says, they do not have time to undertake the intrusive supervision and correct and tilt back in the right direction those officers who are getting it wrong and who are perhaps not as successful as other officers. As a young sergeant, I would go out with all my officers regularly and try to ensure that they were tilted in the right direction.
It was interesting looking at Sir Ronnie Flanagans report on public order policing. He highlighted a particular problem when officers were not being briefed very well at all in public order situations. I think that comes through from policing generally. The briefings could be better. We often assume that officers know what they are doing, but in fact, they actually need a little more information about when, how and why. It comes back to the quality approach: to get good quality, you need good, effective front-line supervision. That means an adequate number of sergeants who are trained in what they are doing, and good inspectors and above as well.

Q 20

Robert Flello: If I may press you on the name and address issue, I am struggling to fathom why an officer would not automatically record a name and address, or why there would not be a requirement for that with every single stop. If you had stopped an individual a number of times in a particular area and had not recorded the name and address of the individual and a couple of days later there was a serious incident in that area, how would you recognise the possible connection between the individual being found in the area acting suspiciously but not enough to take it forward, and that serious crime? If you are not collecting those data constantly and automatically, how will that be of any use?

Paul McKeever: I agree with you. There will be circumstances such as you describe that will cause us problems. Yes. I will go no further than that.

Jan Berry: I think it goes back to the point about what intelligence you need to gather and what you do not. If you stop a person and search them and you find nothing, and there are no other circumstances for thinking you need to keep that intelligence, from an accountability point you need to record the fact that you have undertaken a stop-and-search. But whether you need to record all the details of absolutely every search, I am not so sure. I take your point. In most cases you will need to be able to put that person in that place if something transpires later that you need to go back to.

Q 21

Shona McIsaac: If one theme is coming through, it is about how this will get through to front-line officers. It is a complaint I hear quite a bit. An announcement is made that something will be done and we are now here debating the Bill, but the time delay before the new powers are used is a worry. I want to get some idea about how confident you are that all forces will make sure that these changes are passed on to the front line.

Paul McKeever: I am not at all assured in my own mind that they will get through to front-line officers quickly and effectively. That is from past experience. I have been involved in my home forcethe Metropolitan forcein working up strategy to train officers in new processes and procedures. There is a belief among those designing the training programme that magically everyone will be trained up to the desired standard. The reality on the ground might be very different. There is one particular example in relation to stop-and-search. There was a requirement that officers would have two or three hours training in a particular facet of the work they did. The reality on the ground as reported by friends and colleagues was that they were sent an e-mail saying, This is coming in. Work to this standard from today. That was it. So am I confident that it will happen? No, I am not. Some forces have been very good at ensuring it happens. Other forces will not be as good.

Q 22

Shona McIsaac: Is there anything you can do to deal with that disparity between forces in the way they may use the new powers, if they come into force?

Paul McKeever: There is a legal requirement that they will use the new powers in the way described, but I think there will be some confusion initially, almost inevitably, when those powers come into being.

Jan Berry: The training that Paul describes has been lacking in a lot of areas. Again, the supervisionhaving the opportunity to encourage people to changehas a part to play. You have to go back to why the changes to stop-and-account have not hit home. There are two reasons. One is about the technology, because a lot of the technology took longer to be changed than people anticipated. Some of it is about culture, but some of it is also about community consultation. Stop-and-account and stop-and-search are emotive issues in local communities. Police forces have undertaken big consultation exercises with police authorities on the use of stop-and-search and stop-and-account, but some forces felt that just to change it without going back to those local communities was a step too far. Although I accept that point, we are now 12 months on. The fact that there are still 30 forces not undertaking it in the way that was intended when the procedures changed on 1 January is worrying.

Q 23

Tom Brake: To follow up that point, Jan Berry, are you in effect saying that it is the fault of senior officers in relation to stop-and-account who have chosen not to go for the streamlined version and are still maintaining the need to collate information beyond what is required under stop-and-account? If that is the case, what can be done to get senior officers to take on board what was supposed to be a more streamlined, effective process?

Jan Berry: I think that there are probably two to three answers to that question. It is not just senior officers, I think some chief officers

Q 24

Tom Brake: But if it is not coming from the top, it is not going to hit the grass roots, is it?

Jan Berry: Leadership is terribly important and consistent messages from those leaders are very important. I have spoken to chief officers over the past few months and they tell me that this is not happening. I then have meetings with front-line officers who have local performance indicators that require stop-and-search and stop-and-account in the same way. It is about getting the messages through to absolutely every level but, you are right, it starts with chief officers.

Q 25

Douglas Hogg: This is a very brief pointagain, for either of you. As to technology, looking back, the records were always paper-based and I do not know the extent to which it is possible for the constable on the beat to keep an electronic record, so he or she does not have to make a written report. The record would be made either on the scene electronically or subsequently by tape machine or laptop, for example. Could you help us on the technology now available?

Jan Berry: It is a varied picture around the country. I think that the British Transport police have technology specifically for stop-and-search and stop-and-account. There is a direct piece of technology for that. Very few other forces have that level of technology.

Q 26

Douglas Hogg: Is it coming forward, do you know?

Jan Berry: People have to decide what technology they want, to be honest. We do not want police officers to have one piece of equipment for this and one piece for that. The kit needs to be integrated and have more than one application, so it depends on the equipment. Some police forces are using electronic notebooks on which they can record the information once, and that information then populates different databases, which can be quite effective. Other forces are using the airwave radio for recording stop-and-account and are moving very slowly towards a more electronic version, with PDAs, Blackberrys and so on to record the information. There are 42,000 mobile data devices being used currently by front-line police officers, but not all of those devices will be able to record stop-and-search details although, in the fullness of time, they will, but, from my point of view, that needs to be expedited.

Paul McKeever: Indeed, lots of people are willing to provide kit and equipment out there, and there is a lot to choose from. We have to be very careful when we go to procurement to ensure that we get the right kit. An awful lot of money is already being invested in technology to record stops-and-searches, crimes and so on on the street.
We certainly seem to be going into times of financial hardship, so we have to be very careful about how that money is spent. We have been saying for a long time in the Police Federation that we should look at more central procurement to ensure that we get the right kit and do not have 43 different models of that kit out there. That is important, but we also need to take into account local considerations where necessary. More work needs to be done in that area in particular, but is the kit available? Yes, it is coming online.

Q 27

Douglas Hogg: But a lot of written records are still being made, is that the impression that we are to get?

Paul McKeever: Yes, very much so.

Q 28

Andrew Rosindell: It is important, as I said earlier, to make the job of the policeman effective, straightforward and less bureaucratic. We all agree on that. Modern technology does not just mean using electronic devices. Surely, the fastest way of dealing with the situation is to radio information through to the police station with someone logging it or the voice of the police constable being directly recorded on some sort of device. Is that not a quicker, simpler way of dealing with it than having to write notes either on an electronic notepad or on paper?

Paul McKeever: There are lots of different ways that you can deal with the recording of information, some of which you describe. If you are looking at employing additional people in police stations to listen to what the officers are radioing in, I am not sure it would be a cost-efficient way of undertaking the process, but it is certainly worth looking at.

Q 29

Andrew Rosindell: However, do you not agree that if a system to radio in the information was there, the police on the beat would have more time to deal with other incidents, rather than having to record all this information when there perhaps are more urgent things that they could be getting on with?

Paul McKeever: Yes, indeed. It does happen on occasions now, but we must not lose sight of the fact that technology is not the panacea for all our problems. Everybody here must use e-mail systems, and you can waste an awful lot of time dealing with unnecessary e-mails. You can generate more unnecessary work. If you look at the number of e-mails that you receive each day, most people can discard 80 per cent. of them straight away, but you still have to go through them. So you are actually creating unnecessary work for individuals. Technology can do exactly the same. You impose requirements on people that were not there before. We have to be careful when we look at technology that it cuts back the time required and does not put additional burdens on people.

Jan Berry: The potential for voice recognition at some stage in the future is great, but we are not quite there at the moment. At some point in the future it would be great. Victims could put their information directly on to the system and there would be no paper involved, but we are some way away from achieving that. The type of process that you describe was introduced for crime recording in many forces. Either the information was taken over the telephone in the first instance, or an officer was sent who collated the information and phoned it in. That was considered to be good practice. We are now having second thoughts about that, because you are taking up two or three people to do exactly the same task. That can be very confusing. The jury, for want of a better term, is still out.
It is really important that we get the process right first and then apply technology to assist us. If you apply technology to a bad process and if we do not get that interaction for stop-and-search and stop-and-account right in the first instance we will be using technology to make it even more inefficient. So we have to get the process of stop-and-search and stop-and-account right first and then apply the technology to it.

Q 30

Andrew Rosindell: Earlier, Mr. McKeever said that the Bill was a step in the right direction in this respect. I think Mrs. Berry said that we have to have the correct framework for the police to deal with this. My question is very simple: if it is a step in the right direction, do you think it is going far enough, or could we do more in the Bill to reduce bureaucracy and increase the effectiveness of the police? Mrs. Berry, what would the framework be if you were deciding?

Jan Berry: Me first?

Andrew Rosindell: There were two questions, one to each of you.

Paul McKeever: Step in the right direction? Yes it is a step in the right direction but we are only dealing with stop-and-search in the Bill. If you look at police bureaucracy generally, there is an awful lot of it out there, and it would take an awful lot more than just dealing with stop-and-search to put it right. Our interaction with the Crown Prosecution Service could be looked at and technology introduced, but we are going outside the scope of the Bill. The Bill deals with stop-and-search in particular and one or two other areas. To cut back on bureaucracy wholesale, the Bill would have to go an awful lot further and look at all aspects of policing.
From my experience bureaucracy is a bit of a red herring in that it is a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. Somebody touched on the cultural aspects of policing but something that was not touched on is impositions on us from other agencies that we do business with, such as the CPS. We do not have control over some of the demands made on us. We have to look much wider than just this Bill to address some of the underlying problems in the bureaucracy we deal with. You could cut bureaucracy enormously by ensuring that we are not dealing with the same people again and again. We have a revolving-door process in the criminal justice system whereby between 47 and 90 per cent. of people who go through it will reoffend again within a short period of time. We need to stop that. We need to get those aspects of the criminal justice system right. You could halve bureaucracy overnight if we were not dealing with the same people again and again.

Nicholas Winterton: Jan Berry, I think you are just the right person to deal with this matter.

Jan Berry: I refer to this as the framework that you were speaking about. I think that the framework would need to look at a more targeted approach to stop-and-searchintelligence-driven, but very much on local information involving communities, and being very aware of the risks in that particular area. Any framework has to be risk-based. We are still an accountable organisation, so we have to have some form of record, but training officers to understand what type of intelligence they need to gather and what type of searches they need to undertake in order to gather that intelligence would, I think, be part of that framework. Does that help?

Q 31

Andrew Rosindell: When the word framework was used, it was about the framework that the police would have to work by, in terms of what information they recorded. What I am trying to get at is how to absolutely reduce as much of this as possible so that time is not wasted and the police can get on and do their job. But what would the framework be for an average police constable doing the job of stopping and searching? What is the absolute minimum that we could expect, or that it would be reasonable to expect?

Jan Berry: In respect of stop-and-search?

Andrew Rosindell: Yes.

Jan Berry: What is different between stop-and-search and stop-and-account is that there is greater intrusion with stop-and-search than there is with stop-and-account. Stop-and-account is a conversation and stop-and-search takes it one step further. So in the level of public accountability, there is a requirement on the police service today to be accountable for actions in respect of stop-and-search, but I think that that is on specific areasthe numbers of searches and the areas in which those stops and searches are taking place. What has happened as a result of those stops and searches? So: better information to the public and the community about particular hot spots of crime; what police are doing in those areas in respect of stop-and-search to attack that crime; how many stops and searches they have undertaken; what the results of those stops and searches were, so that people can understand how stop-and-search is being used in the context of local crime and local antisocial behaviour problems.

Q 32

Nicholas Winterton: Jan, may I ask you a question? The Chair does not intervene in these matters, but I wish to ensure that the evidence you are giving is properly understood. You, more than Mr. McKeever, have mentioned the word technology. Are you able to define precisely what you mean by technology? People out there reading your evidence might be interested to know precisely what you mean, and what devices you mean when you use the word technology.

Jan Berry: Certainly. When Sir Ronnie Flanagan undertook his review of policing, he proposed that the details that would be recorded for stop-and-account, as opposed to stop-and-search, should be able to be undertaken by technology, rather than in paper form. What he meant by that was using the Airwave communication radios that police officers have to record the location, because officers locations can be identified from the Airwave radio. They record where they are, the fact that they have undertaken a stop-and-account, and the ethnicity of the individual they have stopped. That automatically populates the data records back at the police stationor back at police headquarters, or wherever they are recording themso that the information is collated. There is no paper. It is literally pressing a button on their Airwave radio to say, I am in the High Street and I am conducting a stop-and-account on a white European male. That is the amount of detail. It is all done by technology.
Alternatively, you may have something like a BlackBerry, and on that BlackBerry there will be a template where you can record the fact that you have undertaken a stop-and-search. That information is then put on to the main databases of the force in a number of different ways. Sometimes it means putting that BlackBerry on to another device that downloads the information. On other occasions, the information is downloaded automatically. There is a variety of different ways in which the use of technology will enable information to be collated and collected on central databases.

Nicholas Winterton: Paul McKeever, do you want to add to that?

Paul McKeever: I concur with what Jan is saying. Technology is useful, but you have to get the processes right first, otherwise, it is a waste of time and money to go through the exercise of implementing that technology. We have seen that in the past. Get it right first and then decide what technology you need to use afterwards.

Q 33

Tom Brake: There has been a lot of talk about bureaucracy. Obviously, less bureaucracy for officers enables them to do their job, but at the same time, bureaucracy is necessary from a civil rights point of view. One of the Bills provisions will reduce the time during which an individual can request a copy of the search record from 12 months to three months. Do you know how many people currently request their search record after more than three months? How many people could, therefore, be told that they are out of time?

Paul McKeever: I do not know, but I can find out.

Jan Berry: I do not have that detail. The last time that type of question was asked, there were a handful of people who had asked for the record at any later period, let alone 12 or three months.

Tom Brake: Right, so normally you are saying that very few requests come in at all.

Jan Berry: For personal data. There are plenty of Freedom of Information Act questions regarding stop-and-search and stop-and-account in general, but very few people who have been stopped are calling someone for the detail 12 months later. But that information will be available and we can find out for you.

Tom Brake: Are you aware of whether that was something that senior police officers were requesting? Do you have any idea where the request came from? Given that, from what you have said, very few requests are made, do you know why there is the necessity to reduce the time from 12 to three months?

Jan Berry: I suspect it is collation and retention of the data more than anything else.

Q 34

Jim Dobbin: For clarification, do you think that the changes suggested should apply in a similar way to the stop-and-search of a terrorist?

Paul McKeever: Well, I hope we would arrest a terrorist because we knew who we were dealing with. I do not know whether you mean stopping and searching a terrorist just walking about generally. I think the concern is not so much about stopping the terrorist, but about stopping those who are not terrorists. That has proved to be a bit of a problem recently. Again, it comes down to training and briefing in particular. It tends to be exercised during large demonstrations, such as the G20. I go back to Sir Ronnie Flanagans report on public order policing. You have to ensure that officers know what they are doing, what the requirements are and how far their powers actually extend. We make an assumption sometimes that they know those intimately, but that is not always correct. The briefing has to be right when those powersparticularly the section 44 powersare to be exercised. If we were dealing with a terrorist per se, I hope that it would be done not by stopping them, but by more stand-off surveillance and other similar activities.

Jan Berry: There have been a number of concerns about overuse of section 44. In the Metropolitan police area recently, there has been greater emphasis on the quality of searches and the quality of the occasions on which section 44 searches are being authorised. The number of section 44 searches has come down considerably over the past two years. Do we need to get names and addresses in those situations?If the searches are necessary. I think terrorism brings a different dynamic and I suspect that the details and names and addresses would be important.

Q 35

David Hanson: I thank both the Police Federation and Jan Berry for the help they have given in looking at the bureaucracy issues. Jan has produced a very helpful report on the wider issues that we are looking at. The Bill reflects one particular aspect of stop-and-search.
If I may, I would like to follow up on the point that Jim Dobbin just made. There are, if you choose to call them Sir Nicholas, amendments relating to stop-and-search that call for the complete repeal of section 44, so it would not be operational in the event of the amendments being accepted. Does the Police Federation, rather than Jan, although I welcome views from her, have a view on whether section 44 should be repealed, given its usage by various forces across the country?

Paul McKeever: I can see the argument for asking for it to be withdrawn or repealed but I think it has a use. It has to be very carefully managed. The problems in the past were not with the law itself but with the management of it, by particularly senior officers who may have exercised the power more widely than it should have been exercised. There are times and occasions when it can be useful, such as G20, as long as it is used proportionately and correctly. It gives officers powers. We have to look at the potential outcome if terrorists strike, which could be very wide-reaching indeed for the economy and Government. We have to ensure that we stop terrorists when we can, and if section 44 can do that in some way, it is good and proper. We support maintaining section 44. Its management needs to be looked at rather than the section itself.

David Hanson: Thank you for that, Mr. McKeever, that is very helpful.

Nicholas Winterton: Do you want to add anything to that, Jan?

Jan Berry: No, I think I said my piece about section 44 earlier.

Q 36

David Hanson: I have two further points to clarify. Do either of you have a view as to the amount of time that clause 1 will ultimately save for police officers across England and Wales?

Paul McKeever: To quantify that is very difficult indeed. You would have to do it force by force to see what benefit actually accrued. From my experience, I think that you would save a fair bit of time but I cannot quantify it here and now. I do not know if Jan has done the work in the past, but it is certainly beneficial. We cannot argue against that at all.

Jan Berry: There are 880,000 searches that the provision would apply to. I have not calculated the minutes on the record in the first place, but I think that somebody averaged the time as seven minutes per stop-and-search form. Some of those seven minutes must be saved and then there are knock-on benefits. They will depend on forces internal systems and processes and how much further time is saved as the administration in back offices is undertaken. At the very least, you are talking about 880,000 times seven minutes.

Q 37

David Hanson: We have estimated it at around 200,000 hours per year. How does that figure seem to you?

Jan Berry: I could not argue with that but there would be some saving. The important thing is how you use those 20,000 hours more effectively and how communities are advised of how those 20,000 hours are being used.

Q 38

David Hanson: In relation to the recording generally, we have estimated that we would save from 12 to seven items being recorded, and of those seven, as Jan mentioned, we think that three could be automatically undertaken when Airwave is rolled out. Would either or both of you agree that that would be practical on the rolling out of Airwave?

Paul McKeever: I certainly think so. I was remarking to some of my colleagues on the way here that we have gone back to pretty much the standard that I was used to working within when I first joined the police service 33 years ago. I thought that was probably the right way to do it, but we have been through all sorts of convolutions since then and we are now back to where I started. I am pleased with where we are. It is a step in the right direction and it can be recorded as you say.

Jan Berry: I think that Airwave can be useful but, as I said earlier, we have to ensure that police officers will not be required to carry a number of different mobile devices. I think we should use Airwave for as much as it is possible to use it, but we also need an eye on the futurehow police officers would have one device, which would be their Airwave radio, in addition to being able to collect and collate all the other information they would require as part of their normal daily duties.

Paul McKeever: May I add something, Sir Nicholas? I think the most important aspect of all this is that by reducing the number of questions you are required to ask, it actually allows more leeway in the interaction you are having with the member of the public you have stopped on the street. That is vital, because the quality of that interaction will determine the relationship and confidence of members of a community or of individuals in the police service in the future. That has to be a real benefit that we accrue. Put aside the time savings and everything else. The quality of that interaction will improve because you are not asking as many intrusive questions. That is good and we welcome it.

Q 39

Nicholas Winterton: It appears that members of the Committee have no further questions for you. Bearing in mind that we have concentrated almost exclusively on stop-and-search, and taking into account the questions that have been put to you, is there any other matter in relation to stop-and-search that you do not think has been adequately covered? Would you like to expound it further? We have a moment or two in hand.

Paul McKeever: I should like to reiterate my opening statement. It is a very important tool in the weapons against crime and in ensuring that our communities are safe. It has to be used proportionately and correctly, and we need to ensure that the front-line supervision is right and that we have the right number of sergeants and inspectors supervising constables on the streets to ensure that we get the right quality. That is what we want to do. The quantitative aspects are important, but the individual we are stopping is not interested in the quantitative recording of the data; they are interested in how they are dealt with. That is the most important aspect of stop-and-search.

Jan Berry: I totally agree with what Paul has just said and conclude by saying that sometimes we focus a little too much on paper and how much time is being saved rather than what we are seeking to achieve. Intelligence and information gathering is the DNA of policing, and we would not be able to provide safety and security to communities without collecting and collating information. But it has to be the right information and it has to be done intelligently, which I think is the point that Paul was making.

Q 40

Nicholas Winterton: I intend to call Mr. Hogg in just a moment, but I seek clarification of what Mr. McKeever has just said. He talked about having the correct number of sergeants and the appropriate front-line management. Do we have either, do we have both or do we have one and not the other?

Paul McKeever: There is certainly a very strong feeling throughout the country that there are not enough sergeants who can impose intrusive supervision, which is an absolutely essential element of good quality policing. They are tied up in too many bureaucratic processes elsewhere and spending too much time at stations. That is where a wider culling of the paperwork would be hugely beneficial to the communities we serve. Allow those sergeants to get back out on the streets, as I used to do on every day of my service, to ensure that the quality was right.

Nicholas Winterton: Jan, do you want to add something? You are there to reduce the bureaucracy.

Jan Berry: I am there to challenge Government and policing to reduce it; I do not think I can do it on my own, much as I would love to have that power. Paul is right. Sergeants and inspectors need to be out there nurturing, encouraging, directing and leading new officers. When they are stuck behind computer screens trying to populate the latest national standard, that is not the best use of their time. We need to have intrusive supervision out on the streets. I am absolutely convinced of that. I said in my report that about 30 per cent. of the bureaucratic burden in forces could be lost tomorrow and nobody would notice the difference.

Q 41

Douglas Hogg: Sir Nicholas, you may not allow me to ask this. We have concentrated on stop-and-search, but if we have time I would also like to know the Police Federations views on DNA. You may take the view that this is not an appropriate time, but on the other hand you may think that it is.

Nicholas Winterton: That is an entirely appropriate question. It is whether or not our witnesses feel that they can reply. But perhaps, as you have put the question on DNA, I will ask both our witnesses for a brief response.

Paul McKeever: I can understand the question, because it has caused us some scratching of heads and a bit of thought in relation to some of the provisions in the Bill. From a policing perspective, we like to have as much information at our disposal as possible, so with my policemans helmet on, I am content with the provisions in the Bill. If, however, you look at the single target we now have, which is improving public confidence, I am not sure that we can wholly achieve it when we are retaining the DNA of people who have been through the system and are then found to be totally innocent of whatever it was they were originally charged with. Why we are keeping the DNA past that point is something that causes me some concern in relation to trying to maintain and enhance public confidence in the police service. If any member of the Committee, or I, was to be arrested and to be found not guilty of whatever it was that we were arrested for, I think we would be unhappy to find that our DNA was being kept for a period of time.

Q 42

Douglas Hogg: Why do you think that a member of the public would be unhappy if they had been acquitted? What is the reason for that unhappiness?

Paul McKeever: It is their DNA and if they had not been arrested it would not have been taken in the first place. They have changed their status in the community; whereas their peers and colleagues, who have not been arrested and found not guilty, do not have their DNA held by police, they do. From a policing perspective, is it good to maintain a large database? The larger the better, from a policing perspective, but is that actually enhancing public confidence?

Q 43

Douglas Hogg: Where do you think the balance falls between those two competing considerations?

Paul McKeever: There is a model in Scotland that is used in a more conservative way. The DNA is not retained if you are found innocent, unless you have been through a criminal process involving violence or sexual offences. I think that perhaps to limit them in that respect would be more appropriate than retaining the DNA of everybody for a period of time specified in the Bill, but we need to give the matter more thought.

Q 44

Robert Flello: Do you think that the public are unhappy when they hear about previously unsolved crimes being cleared up because of retention of DNA?

Paul McKeever: Yes, they would be.

Robert Flello: You think that the public would be unhappy

Paul McKeever: That they would be happy or unhappy?

Robert Flello: Your previous answer was that a member of the public who was arrested and subsequently found not guilty but had their DNA retained would be unhappy about that and that the public would be unhappy about that. My question is, are the public also unhappy when they hear that because of that retention of DNA, previously unsolved crimes have been cleared up?

Paul McKeever: They are happy with that and there is a number of high-profile cases where that has proved to be hugely beneficial, yes. So there are two sides. From the police perspective I am very happy to retain DNA, but with the imposition of a target of public confidence for the individual I am not so surenot quite so convinced of it. From a policing perspective, you are absolutely right. There are benefits.

Q 45

Alison Seabeck: Briefly, there are also instances where the police have genuine concerns about an individual who is taken to court, perhaps on a lesser charge, and is found not guilty, but is undoubtedly somebody the police have reason to believe may go on to commit further crimes. If that DNA is not retained and a further crime is committed, you are losing a piece of evidence are you not?

Paul McKeever: If they are convicted of a lesser crime?

Q 46

Alison Seabeck: If the person goes on and commits another, more violent, offence but the DNA has not been retained because that person was deemed to be innocent of the previous charge, you are effectively losing a significant piece of evidence.

Paul McKeever: I do not understand. If they are convicted of an offence the DNA will be retained.

Q 47

Alison Seabeck: Say a person is somebody who the police have genuine concerns about. The police are able to bring a lesser case against the individual, but the lesser case collapsesit falls down. They are innocent, therefore their DNA would not be retained. They then go on to commit a further crime or crimesperhaps more serious crimesand come to court, but you then do not have the DNA evidence from the previous alleged offence to use to help convict them.

Paul McKeever: With my policing hat on, I think that is beneficial.

Q 48

Alison Seabeck: So you will potentially lose pieces of information.

Paul McKeever: Yes.

Nicholas Winterton: I think Mr. McKeever is being as helpful as possible although he has not come to answer questions on this.

Q 49

Tom Brake: As the DNA database has been opened, do you not think that perhaps the logical conclusion of some of the arguments that are being put in relation to DNA is that everyone in the country should have their DNA registered? Do any of your colleagues advocate that sort of approach?

Paul McKeever: I am sure some officers do advocate that approach. I have given my DNA to the database to ensure that I could be screened out if I were at the scene of a crime or what have you. I have no personal concerns about giving my DNA. Should it be imposed on the general population? I would have to give that some serious consideration. Yes, I would have some worries about that.

Nicholas Winterton: We have now run out of questions. Can I say to Paul McKeever and Jan Berry that the Committee thanks you very much indeed for the thoughtful and helpful information you have provided to this Public Bill Committee. It will certainly assist us in the further debate on this important Bill. On behalf of all the Committee I thank you very much indeed. I now call the next panel of witnesses.

Nicholas Winterton: I welcome the second panel of witnesses this morning: Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers, Association of Chief Police Officers; Sally Ireland, Chairman of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice; Maureen Noble, Head, Manchester Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership; and Jim Battle, Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council, just to the north of my constituency and Cheshire. In order to help everybody, could you perhaps introduce yourselves to members of the Committee?

Sue Akers: I am Deputy Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan police. My current role is in the specialist crime directorate. I am here because I lead for ACPO on gangs.

Sally Ireland: I am the chair of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, which is a large coalition of organisations, including the major childrens charities, many of the organisations of youth justice professionals and penal reform groups.

Maureen Noble: I am the head of the crime and disorder reduction partnership in the city of Manchester. I have lead responsibility for developing and implementing Manchesters crime reduction strategy, which includes the important issue of reducing serious violence.

Jim Battle: Good afternoon. I am the deputy leader of Manchester city council, with responsibility for crime and disorder reduction, including gangs, guns and violent crime.

Nicholas Winterton: I thank you for coming before us. I ask Shona McIsaac to put the first question to you.

Q 50

Shona McIsaac: Thank you for coming. Obviously we shall be talking about gangs and the proposed injunctions for those under the age of 18. To kick off this evidence session I should like you each to explain how you deal with under-18s under current powers. Do you think that those powers are used consistently across the country?

Nicholas Winterton: Shona, could you perhaps indicate to which of the witnesses you are directing your question or whether it is for all of them?

Q 51

Shona McIsaac: I want to know whether any of them have a particular view about this, but obviously the most appropriate person to start off would be Sue Akers in her role with the Met.

Sue Akers: I will do my best. Clearly we have all the powers under the criminal law to use to deal with under-18s. We deal with antisocial behaviour and there are numerous other areas. In policing, we do our best to avoid criminalising young people and, if possible, to work in partnership to try to divert them from crime. There is an awful lot of activity in policing that goes to that partnership effort in diverting young people. The criminal law is the last resort for us.

Sally Ireland: The existing powers that can be used in relation to children and young people involved in gang-related activity obviously include the criminal law and the current scheme in the youth justice system before children and young people get to court of reprimands and final warnings and interventions from youth offending teams at the final warning stage. Then they can be charged and prosecuted. There are also, very importantly, the powers of local authority childrens services to go to family courts for care proceedings, including secure care orders. That aspect has been ignored. Children who are being drawn into gang activity are at risk of harm and there are grounds in some cases for local authorities to exercise their civil powers in the family courts.

Maureen Noble: Antisocial behaviour orders are clearly one of the key powers in the toolbox in relation to local authorities. They are used in this context, but they fall short in a number of areas, which is why we are looking closely at the injunction. Some of those areas are around the time it can take to achieve a full ABSO, the response from the court and the management of the individual within an ASBO. We have used ASBOs reasonably successfully in Manchester but we find that there is a gap in terms of our powers here. There are lesser legal scenarios that we can bring into play here and safeguarding legislation and powers is obviously really important in this context too. We would see the response from a local authority and partnership perspective as being the legal and criminal response when necessary, but there is also a significant element of support alongside the challenge that the legal response brings.

Jim Battle: In Manchester we have seen the various authoritiespolice, local authorities and othersusing the powers they have in child protection or antisocial behaviour and I have become aware of the fact that there comes a point when those powers peter out and it is probably at the critical point. A young person, usually a young man, may be complying to a certain degree with various orders but at the point where the police or their parents feel the person is in danger, there are limited powers to act. That is why we see this type of injunction as extremely important in very special and very occasional circumstances. They are necessary when other things have failed or the person is not complying. It is the final thing. I would not want to be the police officer or the local authority social worker who goes back to the parent and says, We couldnt do it. We couldnt protect your child because we did not have that power. We did not have that last tool in the box. That is what we are looking at here.

Q 52

Robert Flello: I have a couple of questions. I almost should declare an interest as I have been a fan of the way that Manchester has addressed antisocial behaviour issues and such problems for many years. I just thought I would get that off my chest.

Jim Battle: Thank you very much.

Robert Flello: A pleasure. My question is addressed to the pair of you from Manchester, so I apologise to you other folks. I shall be coming to you. You may hesitate to answer this, but I should be grateful if you could be as candid as possible. You talked about a toolbox of measures. To what extent do you feel other local authorities up and down the country are either selectively looking in that toolbox, ignoring it completely or perhaps using the tools but tinkering with them? Do you feel there is a possibility that this may be seen as an almost gimmicky power that they use instead of going through the toolbox? I feel that many of them do not do that.

Maureen Noble: It is difficult to speak on behalf of other local authorities, because I am not an expert on them. I can say what works and what does not work in Manchester, and I will be candid about some of the difficulties that we experience in using all the tools in the box, and we have many. I may make some comparisons where I can with other local authorities, but I will not name them because that would be unfair.
Certainly around antisocial behaviour legislation, the ASBO is, like the injunction, the last resort. Many things can be used before an ASBO, and that often takes place in other settings. A parenting order, for example, may be granted in the context of a school setting within the domain of childrens services and education. They may feel slightly less than comfortable about a parenting order being the line of first resort, but we see a parenting order as being a wholly constructive, very integrated and very positive way of dealing with the first step along that line of legislation. That does not always happen for us in Manchester so I would guess, given what you have kindly said about our vociferous approach to the use of antisocial behaviour legislation, that it does not happen in other local authorities.
Is there unwillingness? In the general context of crime and disorder reduction partnerships, I would say not, but there may be a slightly different approach from the childrens services arena. However, I am going to caveat that by saying that, as I think public protection and safeguarding issues come closer together for all of us in the public sector, we see the value of the types of orders and initiatives that bring those two constituencies together with a shared understanding around challenging negative behaviour but supporting the pro-social approach. I think there is a necessary coming together here. My belief is that this type of legislation, and the iterations before it, actually make a difference in creating understanding around why that collective joint working is so important.

Jim Battle: To add a few points to that, I think that while there are a range of legal tools in the box, none of them are of any use unless they are used properly. Their proper use is critical. I would say that the proper useand, indeed, the success of Manchesteris that they are used in a wider policy context. For example, antisocial behaviour is dealt with as part of neighbourhood management, and it is part of parenting policy and educational policy. Indeed, I do not think that the issue of injunctions before us today would achieve anything standing on its own, but within a framework of proper strategy, thinking and planning and engagement with partners, other actions can be taken and it will be another option in the final stages.
The context is important. The question I would ask anyone who is looking at any local authority to judge where they are successful or not in using this type of legislation is: what is the policy context, policy framework and practice in which you are engaging? If they just say, We use an ASBO because weve got trouble on x estate, I can bet your bottom dollar that although that response may appear to be instant, it is not sustainable. I think the achievement in Manchester is building it into a policy framework. Key to that framework is the engagement with the public and parents. Without their buy-in, understanding, engagement and support, these policies would evaporate. In fact, in Manchester I think we have seen greater reporting of crime because the public recognise that the police and other agents can do something about it.
In the Moss Side area, for example, where gangs and guns have been an issue, in the last three or four years we have seen increased engagement, increased information and increased confidence in the police, because the public have been confident that the police and others can do something about the problems they are presented with. That is key. So this range of polices is extremely important, but it must be seen in context.

Sally Ireland: Could you repeat the question, please?

Q 53

Robert Flello: It was a very long question, but I will do my best. Basically, are other local authorities around the country using the powers that are in the toolbox, are they not using them at all, are they misusing them, or are they ignoring the full use of some of the powers that already exist? Therefore, I wondered whether this particular injunction could just be used almost in a gimmicky way by a local authority that is not making full use of the powers that it already has.

Sally Ireland: I will raise one concern, which is in relation to the ASBOs and the other antisocial behaviour powers. This measure is ostensibly designed to cover a small number of children and young people in a small number of cases. That was originally what was envisaged for ASBOs in relation to children and young people too, and they were primarily designed for adults. However, we have obviously seen that a high percentage of them are being applied to children and young people, and their misbehaviour.
I think that the enthusiasm of many local authorities for ASBOs has waned slightly and we have seen the numbers of applications for ASBOs going down, on the understanding that other powers, such as acceptable behaviour contracts, which obviously do not involve a coercive court order, can be more successful in fully engaging the child and their family in taking measures to address behaviour.
I echo the point that Ms Noble made. These injunctions are slightly different, but a prohibitive order in itself, which simply prohibits the child or young person from doing a list of things, will achieve nothing, because if the child does not receive support to change their behaviour, especially in the chaotic circumstances in which such children are often living, they will not have the capacity to change it.
We are very concerned about these injunctions, which we have not really addressed directly so far in this evidence session. That is because they bypass the existing youth justice system, which is designed to deal with children and young people using people with enormous expertise in that sector, and because effectively they will impose all kinds of requirements and prohibitions on children and young people who have not been convicted of any criminal offence. These injunctions are really equivalent to a community sentence.
As with ASBOs, we have already seen examples of powers that were designed to be used as a last resort in a small number of cases becoming very popular. You can see how police and investigators who find it very difficult to gather evidence for criminal prosecution, as happens in gang cases because there is a conspiracy of silence and witness intimidation, find it difficult to prosecute those cases, and we are concerned that this measure will effectively be used as a short cut.

Sue Akers: The performance of local councils crime and disorder reduction partnerships is patchy across the country. It very much depends on whether an area is prepared to acknowledge publicly that it has a problem with gangs, so that you can even consider injunctions.
The thing that attracts me about the injunction that is being proposed is not so much its ability to prevent activity but its ability to help to divert people away from what could potentially be a disastrous route for them. If it is to be used effectively, it must be used sparingly and in very specific cases. It must be closely targeted and the conditions surrounding it must be very bespoke, so that it has the desired effect and prevents a recurrence of violence, benefiting both the victim and the potential reoffender, which is what this is all about.
So I echo what my colleagues have said. The key is that the injunction must be very focused, very targeted and very bespoke to the problem.

Q 54

Robert Flello: May I follow up on that? I had a long list of points to make, but I will defer to the other Members of the Committee; otherwise, I shall be hogging the whole session.
Regarding the legislation as it is written, do you think that it is tough enough or that it needs to be tougher, in the sense of requiring that wrap-around of other servicesfamily services or whateverand in the sense of requiring not only the injunction and that things should be prohibited but action from a local authority, so that the authority does something specific?
Sally, you might want to kick off the answers to that question.

Sally Ireland: We oppose the legislation on children in its entirety. That is a preface. To answer your question, it essentially imposes prohibitions and requirements on the child or young person. Obviously, once in the realm of positive requirements, it is envisaged that if you tell them to attend a certain programme, that will be provided. I imagine that it will be provided by the YOT, which will have to be consulted before the order is made, but there is nothing in the legislation itself to compel the local authority or YOT to offer certain programmes, for example.
That is one problem that has come up in the criminal context with youth rehabilitation orders. The legislation contains all kinds of helpful, inventive requirements such as mental health or alcohol treatment, but in many areas those programmes and facilities are not there, so courts are powerless to make orders in those terms, because nothing will happen. It depends on availability.

Sue Akers: I go back to my point about needing to be bespoke. It would be ludicrous for a court to give a power incapable of being carried out by the area where it is making that judgment. That is why I think that it should be used sparingly, and it should be very careful to make sure that either the requirements or preventive measures surrounding the injunction can actually be carried out; otherwise, it is completely pointless.

Maureen Noble: I want to say something about the services that meet the needs of high-risk vulnerable young people. It is absolutely crucial that those services are there, and it is absolutely possible to provide them. I challenge any youth offending service or local authority to reflect on its own practice if it does not provide them. We must do so in close partnership

Q 55

Nicholas Winterton: Could you spell out the services?

Maureen Noble: I can name some of the services that we have in Manchester. We have a youth offending service, which is as close to integration into crime and disorder services and childrens services as it is possible to be. The brief for that service comes not simply from an enforcement perspective but from a safeguarding, child protection perspective too.
I very much take Miss Irelands point that the young people might have needs over and above many of the cases that youth offending services currently deal with, and that the packages of care might not currently exist within those services, but is that not our challenge? Should we not be developing those services? Absolutely. Can we develop them? Yes, we can.
We have an independently commissioned piece of work, Eight till Late, which works with the siblings and families of gang members in schools from the age of eight. It is a small but significant piece of work that, as Sue Akers said, de-escalates the potential for involvement in serious gang violence. We have a multi-agency gang strategy team in Manchester that brings together all the key agencies that need to work on the issue, as Councillor Battle said, to make a difference, get to the root of the problem and begin to rehabilitate those young people.
One last thing that I would say is that in terms of the perception of the community, family and individual and our services, we are talking about high-risk young people. They are very serious situations that those young people either find themselves in or create for others. My view is that we have to think differently to work with that high risk.

Jim Battle: The context in which the injunctions will operate needs to be understood. Although there is an obvious crossover to link them with ASBOs, they are very different in many ways. Where an injunction is applied for, it would not be unreasonable for the courts to identify what has happened up to now, the interventions and who has been involved with the person, so that it is clear, and where they will go next. It is not simply turning a tap off or fastening somebody in their own home. It is about a further journey for the individual that is out of the context of being a gang member. That is the context in which we see these injunctions being operated, and we would be highly critical of any local authority or, indeed, any authority that just used them willy-nilly, without that understanding. They should not be using them unless they have done lots of things beforehand to get there.
An example is a young man who we have given a great deal of support to. We rehoused him elsewhere. He complied with everything everyone said to him on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday night he was out, Saturday night he was out, Sunday night he was out with the gangs and around and Monday morning he was back into compliance. That man was a danger to himself and others, and we did not have the real power to say, Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night are the same as the rest of the week, son, for the rest of your life. I think that is what these powers would do. Out of context, that would make no difference; in context, it is vital.

Sally Ireland: I just want to come back quickly on the last resort point. Everybody seems to be agreed that these powers should be used as a last resort if they are to be used. The problem is that there is nothing in the legislation to guarantee that. It depends entirely on the discretion of the individual local authority or police, because these can of course be applied for by police as well. These provisions would be improved by there being some sort of consideration of the court, specified in the legislation, before granting the injunction, to the effect that other measures have been tried and have not worked in this case.

Q 56

Jim Dobbin: My constituency borders Manchester to the north, so I am very interested in what is happening there at present. Like all Members here, I have estates where there are some serious gang problems. I have one estate where two families run the estate and it is serious stuff. Although the legislation is about injunctions, the message that really should be going out from this evidence session is so important. It is the kind of message that should be inclusive; it should run alongside this legislation.
I am interested in the links within the different agencies at local authority level, particularly the schools and the police. I have two schools where there is a designated police officer based in the school, and that is very comforting for me and the local community. I have another school where a member of the staff will go out with a police patrol on a Friday evening, so they are able to identify some of the youngsters who may be in danger of getting into trouble and they can have some influence on the youngsters the following week. I am interested in that kind of initiative and whether you think that it is the kind of initiative that we should all be pursuing.

Nicholas Winterton: Who do you want to answer, Jim? All of them?

Jim Dobbin: All of them if they have something to contribute.

Jim Battle: I think what Mr. Dobbin describes is damn good neighbourhood policing, and that is the sort of thing that we do see in our neighbourhoods. It is the foundation on which other things will be based. It also deals with the prevent agenda. Police officers and local authority officers who are well connected with the community can pick up some of the first signs and signals and then need to have the right pathways to direct the young people or others to where they can get the appropriate support and, indeed, courses of action for prevention through things like parentingdeveloping their knowledge and experience.
What you describe is the foundation, and that was the context I was talking about, saying that within most neighbourhoods it should happen, but there are instances in some neighbourhoods where the level of gang membership and violence that follows from that is totally different. In some parts of Manchester, young people will fight out their differences with their fists and may throw a few things. In other neighbourhoods in Manchester, young people fight it out with a weapona gunand the consequences are absolutely devastating for the young people, their families and the community. It is a different scale and different ingredients. Certainly the work of Excalibur in Manchester has used the neighbourhood policing methods to build up confidence and support among parents and the communityand, indeed, gang members. They are seen not only to be there to enforce the law, but to protect.
That foundation, that method, I would applaud. I recognise it to be part and parcel of this. When somebody says, What is the policy context? and you get out the rule, you start with neighbourhood policing, you go right the way through and you end with neighbourhood policing.

Nicholas Winterton: Maureen, this is very much your area.

Maureen Noble: I want to focus on the schools aspect, which was part of the question. Safer schools partnerships are a policy initiative that is beginning to embed at local level. With our safer schools partnerships in Manchester, in those geographic areas where we know we have concentrations of the kind of extreme problems that Councillor Battle described, we rate such schools, with the head teachers permission, as being tier 3.
That tier 3 status means that they will have a full-time police officer in school, supported and paid for by the school itself, with an explicit role not just around problem solving in the playgroundnot to reduce that role or to use the phrase, It is not important, as it is very important to have that hands-on rolebut to engage with the school and its senior management and with all the local partnerships, to tackle some of the problems that youve described.
A tier 2 or tier 1 school may also have some of that, but what was interesting for us in developing a response with the police for safer schools is that none of our schools that were rated tier 3 in relation to gang violence or violence that might be associated with extremism have rebelled in any way against that categorisation. They have said, We want to work with you. We recognise that we have a problem here. We dont feel stigmatised by that. We have to take positive action. We are on a journey with those schools and we have some way to go.
But the whole school community there is involved; there is a feeling among parents in those schools that it is not a school declaring its hand by saying, Weve got big problems. It is actually a school saying, Weve got some issues, and were going to tackle them. There are some very positive things, and Im sure in your own area youll be aware of the safer schools partnership. It is an excellent route to working with some of those further upstream issues that can result in the displays on the streets that we heard about.

Sally Ireland: Three things, quickly. First, we have all seen the reviews that come out after serious cases both of harm to children and where children have committed serious offences. They are common characteristics. They all talk about information sharing between different agencies, and the need for different agencies to be able to raise concerns and share them so that a complete picture can be put together, so that they can identify where a child is at risk of serious offending or of serious harm.
Safer schools partnerships can be positive. One thing that we would wish to avoidwe are talking about the lower end rather than serious gang-related violenceis for every fight in the playground to become a criminal justice issue as a result of the presence of a police officer in the school. That is very important.
Thirdly, on education, I highlight that many of the children at risk that we are talking about today will not be in school. The proportion of children in custodythose who have committed serious offences and who have not been in education sometimes for years before going into custodyis shockingly high. We must be looking, as part of the solution, both at the exclusion of children from school and provision for children who have been excluded in terms of pupil referral units and their attendance.

Nicholas Winterton: Sue Akers, do you have any national overview?

Sue Akers: I have a national overview, but I can rebalance it and put the southern sideor the London side. The good work going on in Manchester is being replicated in London. It has obviously driven the safer neighbourhood teams in every single ward. We are a big part of the safer schools partnership. We have dedicated police officers in 181, I think at the last count, secondary schools and pupil referral units. All the cases that we have sadly seen will show that we are not there yet and we still need to do more around talking to each other and sharing information across the agencies, but it is improving.

Nicholas Winterton: Do you want to come back on that, Maureen?

Maureen Noble: I want to say one thing in response to Miss Irelands point about non-attendance at school, because I think this is absolutely crucial for this group of young people. We did a deep dive on 30 cases, when we were reformulating our gang strategy in Manchester, of explicitly gang-involved young people who had shot, or been shot at. So these are the top of our risk population. Almost every one of those young people was a regular school attender and almost every one of them wanted to be in school. The ones who were not in school were excluded and we had some difficulty in getting schools to take them back into school, for very obvious reasons.
Safer schools partnerships have offered us the solution there. We now have head teachers who say, I know there are some risks around this young person, but we have worked out, as a school, how we are going to deal with them. So we do not get a reactive situation. We are actually planning for these young people being in school. I think we must understand some of the characteristics of these problems. I absolutely take the point around a larger population of young offenders that they are often not in school. Our experience was that they were in school and wanted to be in school, and could actually perform reasonably well. So we cannot erect barriers to that.

Q 57

Douglas Hogg: I have no experience of these injunctions at all, so I would like to ask you a few brief factual questions and then I want to ask you a general question, probably to everybody, but would you reply very concisely please, because colleagues want to get in?
First, I assume that section 34 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 is in force. Can you tell me how many injunctions have been issued in your respective areas? Secondlyagain a factual questionwhat are the resources implications of section 34? In particular, what do you judge to be the resource implications of clause 36 of the Bill, which is the enforcement section? Thirdlythis is the general questionhas anybody really given serious consideration to the civil rights implications of all this? It is clear that an injunction can be issued against a young person where there is insufficient evidence to bring home a criminal charge. Yet it is quite plain that the injunction restricts liberty in a variety of ways and can lead to enforcement action of the kind that is provided for in clause 36. That gives rise to civil rights issues relating to the young person. I have not heard that addressed at all.
So, two factual questions and one general questionand very concise answers, if you would be so good.

Nicholas Winterton: May I suggest that Sue Akers replies first?

Sue Akers: My information is that it is not yet in force and therefore we have not taken out any of these injunctions as adults not yet empoweredthat is my note here. So we cannot answer your subsequent question on the kind of resources that will be required to do that. On the civil rights aspect, the way I have looked at this is that it is all about extreme violence. If used properly, the objective would be to stop somebody being killed, or killing another.

Q 58

Douglas Hogg: But that gives rise to the civil rights questions that need to be addressed, because an injunction, as I understand it, actually restricts peoples ability to do this and that. The injunction can be issued at a lower standard of proof than that required for the conviction of a criminal offence. That is a matter that has to be addressed, whether that is desirable or undesirable.

Sue Akers: That is a matter for you, with respect.

Douglas Hogg: I should like to hear your opinion.

Sue Akers: The benefits of preventing someone from being killed outweigh that.

Douglas Hogg: That is a very drastic example.

Sue Akers: Well, I think that it would be used in these fairly extreme cases. I do not envisage this power being used excessively or to address the lower-level violence that could be addressed by antisocial behaviour orders.

Q 59

Douglas Hogg: So your view is that the injunction is going to be sought very infrequently. Is that the common view of the panel?

Jim Battle: Yes.

Sally Ireland: No.

Q 60

Nicholas Winterton: We have a disagreement. Sally Ireland?

Sally Ireland: I should like to address the civil rights question directly. One of our key reasons for opposing the application of this legislation to children is the human rights implications. Mr. Hogg is right to say that essentially these injunctions allege serious criminal conduct: encouraging, assisting or carrying out acts of gang-related violence. It is notablealthough it is overstating to give the example of homicide, effectivelythat there is no minimum level of seriousness of violence before these injunctions can be applied for or given. We could be talking about more minor activity, particularly in the context of children and young people, where more minor activity may be happening.
The civil standard of proof is explicitly in the legislation. It is interesting to compare that with ASBOs. The ASBO legislation was silent as to the standard of proof: that is, should it be a balance of probabilities or beyond reasonable doubt? The House of Lords, in the case of McCann, determined that the seriousness of the allegations of an ASBO was such that, although they were civil not criminal orders, as a matter of pragmatism the criminal standard of proof should be applied in all ASBO applications. So it has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt that the antisocial behaviour occurred. The Home Office is clearly trying to get round that in relation to these injunctions by putting in the legislation that the civil standard applies. Notably, it has also moved them, unlike ASBOs, which are applied for in the magistrates court

Q 61

Douglas Hogg: Could I just pause you? With regard to that Court of Appeal judgment

Sally Ireland: It was a House of Lords judgment.

Douglas Hogg: Was the court saying that it was for public policy reasons desirable that the standard of proof should be at a criminal level?

Sally Ireland: Yes; it is quite customary in the civil courts, as I am sure you will be familiar. Where fraud is alleged, for example, in the civil courts, a heightened standard of proof is used, because of the seriousness of the reputational damage to the individual.

Q 62

Douglas Hogg: Are you suggesting that this is an attempt by the Home Office to go behind the decision of the Court of Appeal?

Sally Ireland: It was the House of Lords, the McCann case.

Douglas Hogg: Even more serious in that case.

Sally Ireland: It is definitely to avoid a repeat of McCann, if it is silent on the standard of proof in this legislation. Because this legislation is very clear about it, essentially a declaration of incompatibility would have to be issued under the Human Rights Act 1998. As we know, the courts are quite cautious about doing that. I would also say that the constitution of the Supreme Court that we now haveas opposed to the House of Lords that we had back in 2002means that, in my opinion, it would be less likely that such a declaration would be issued.
It is also worth making another comparison with ASBOs. ASBOs can only prohibit conduct: prohibit individuals from associating with other individuals or entering proscribed zones, that sort of thing. These injunctions can make all sorts of positive requirements, including that the person is at a certain place for up to eight hours a day. We are talking effectively about a curfew. So they can impose a curfew; they can require them to attend programmes; they can, as Mr. Hogg said, make all kinds of inroads into the persons life in a variety of areas, without any criminal conduct having ever been proved to the criminal standard.
As a last resort, if the injunction is breached, children and young people could be looking at custody for up to three months. That goes entirely against the Governments stated policy that custody for children should be a last resort. That is also an international legal requirement under the UN convention on the rights of the child, to which the UK is a core signatory. There are serious concerns about this.

Nicholas Winterton: Who wants to come in first? Maureen Noble or Jim Battle?

Maureen Noble: I will speak briefly. I am not a lawyer, politician or police officer. From a public protection point of view, there is merit in looking at this injunction. The young people I know and see will sometimes benefit from restrictions being placed on them. That does not override a civil liberties argument, and I would never suggest that it does.
In the context of Manchesterthe area that I know wellwe are dealing with the young people in our top 30 who need more than they have now. I say that with all seriousness and passion. They are highly at risk of killing or being killed. It is incumbent on us to examine every element of this, including the civil rights element. However, requiring them to be in certain places at certain times is sometimes beneficial to them, although that is restrictive of their liberty. We need to show that we are concerned and that we care.

Jim Battle: Although it may be comfortable or natural to compare these two ASBOs, I think we are talking about a different animal. The standard has to be measured against the level of violence that is encountered or perpetrated in a particular area by gang activity. It is not general antisocial behaviour. In the Moss Side area, antisocial behaviour in its conventional sense is, believe it or not, very low. But this type of behaviour is sadly higher. I am pleased to state that it is actually declining, but it is still there.
Our approach to this Committee is to say, Yes, we do recognise there are human rights implications here. We recognise that there are human rights implications when a young man holds a gun up and shoots at another. And we recognise that there are human rights implications when another is killed.

Q 63

Douglas Hogg: But that is a criminal offence, of course.

Jim Battle: Absolutely. We see the highest form as using the criminal law, and where appropriate it should be used. But there are issues relating to the availability of evidence. We have encountered silence within communities, partly because of the degree of confidence in our ability to respond appropriately. We have also seen silence in communities because of intimidation and fear.
We believe that on balance these types of injunctions would serve, first, the individual, secondly, the community and, thirdly, would support the authorities in providing the type of environment that young people can grow up in. It is difficult and challenging and it is not easy, but to deny us that capacity would be a step backwards rather than forwards.

Q 64

Douglas Hogg: Listening to you speak, Councillor, I had the impression that your authority, or whoever, may seek injunctions quite frequently, unlike the evidence of Sally Ireland.

Jim Battle: I can assure youI have said it beforethat these would be incredibly rare: as rare as hens teeth. They will be used extremely rarely, because we believe that we have other strategies at our disposal and other ways of addressing this. I think we have demonstrated that. The number of gang incidents has declined rapidly. But we have used other tools. We regard this as the final tool. I disagree with Miss Ireland. The tools are not there to be used except as the very last resort, because if they were used in any other way they would become invalid and would be incredibly difficult to administer.
We are looking at the point at which a young man sets off and the police are aware and they have to intervene. They have not got the powers at the moment and I think they need them.

Q 65

Alison Seabeck: May I follow on from your point, yet again? You talk about the numbers involved being small. Do you have a sense at all of the number of young people who would potentially be affected by this type of injunction?

Maureen Noble: Let me start by talking about what we know in terms of the size of the population in Manchester. We have a sophisticated monitoring system for gang membership that starts with recognition of issues in schoolthe wearing of badges and regalia, and associationsright the way through to those who are criminally convicted and their associates. We have a good database and monitoring system in respect of that. Our Manchester database probably contains between 500 and 600 names of young people who are gang-involved. The Committee should understand that that goes from the wearing of a colour to the carrying of a gun, so the spectrum is vast. We are looking at the very top of that spectrum. For the purposes of this injunction, we are probably looking at a potential cohort of around 30 young people.

Q 66

Douglas Hogg: In your area or more generally?

Maureen Noble: In Manchester. Many of those young people will be subject to custodial sentences already. By young, I am talking about people from the ages of 10 to 24, which is defined as a young person in some of our youth services. There is a big age span, but potentially that very top group is of around 30 young people. Some 25 per cent. of those young people are in custody at any given time. Another 25 to 50 per cent. will be either under the supervision of the youth offending service or engaged with another service through which we are managing their behaviour, and they are often contributing to the management of that behaviour. That leaves us with potentially eight, 10 or 12 young people. I do not think that we can talk hard and fast on this. We do know that in Manchester gang membership is growing; the numbers are increasing. The trajectory from joining and wearing a colour to carrying a gun is shortening.

Q 67

Alison Seabeck: Can we go back to the age issue? You talked about a spectrum from 10 to 24. The Bill introduces a lower limit of 14. We all know from our constituency work, casework and going out with the police that significant numbers of young peopleeight, nine, 10 or 11-year-oldsare being used by and are joining gangs. We also know that they are capable of perpetrating some pretty awful offences, as we have seen in recent weeks. Those young people do not fall within the powers. Within the figures that you have given, how many younger peoplebelow 14would you say could potentially fall into a group and slip through because of how the legislation applies?

Maureen Noble: I cannot give you exact numbers but we know in Manchester that the age of what we would call gang-membership is falling, and the Committee has looked at what we believe constitutes gang-membership. Fourteen is not young now, but 10, perhaps, still is. Our understanding is that the proposal has been formulated in conjunction and consultation with a wide range of agencies, which felt that 14 was the right level. The age of criminal responsibility is 10. Are there 10-year-olds in Manchester that this possibly could be applied to? Yes, there are, because there are 10-year-olds who are deeply gang-involved.

Q 68

Alison Seabeck: Particularly when we know that these young people are being drawn in, not so much due to peer pressure, but, rightly or wrongly, due to hero worship to a degree, is there also a risk that the injunction will be see as a badge of honour that somebody will strive to achieve?

Jim Battle: As I said before, we see this as the end of a process. I would not see it as a graduation process because, by the time we were at an injunction, there would have been a great deal of engagement with the young person. That young person will be aware that the authorities, the police and others are fully aware that they are a member of a gang, a danger to themselves and a danger to others. That is why it is not the same as when people claim that ASBOs are that type of badgethis is different. We would be way down the road on this. I would have thought that somebody who saw it as a graduation process would be totally wrong.

Sally Ireland: I want to come back to the 10-13 age group. If these injunctions are to be applied, there are even stronger arguments against extending them to that younger age group. If younger children are being drawn into gangs, they might be being drawn in by a high combination of intimidation/fear. The presence of a court order stating, Stop this behaviour will not act as a very strong disincentive when weighed against those influences, which would be very strong on such a young child. Obviously a response is needed, but that should be a childrens services response, because we are talking about young children who are deeply at risk.

Nicholas Winterton: Councillor Jim Battle wanted to come in again briefly on that point.

Jim Battle: I have spoken with my local MP, Tony Lloyd, to say that we think it would be more appropriate if it was moved to 10. We believe that there needs to be the proper protection and framework, but as Maureen has rightly outlined, there are issues for young people and older children as well.

Nicholas Winterton: Robert, did you want to speak?

Robert Flello: Yes, unless another member of the Committee desires to speak on those points.

Nicholas Winterton: Andrew will speak first, as we have about 10 minutes left.

Q 69

Andrew Rosindell: Thank you for your evidence today. I think that the public listening to the debate will want to know how the new law will affect and improve their neighbourhoods and local communities. Some of you represent local government, and the police and local government obviously have a role in enforcing the measures. Will the legislation make a huge difference, and will there be a visible difference in how the police and local authorities are able to tackle the problem of gang-related violence and threats against people? Will it make a difference, or is it yet another piece of legislation that reads well in the national newspapers but will not make a blind bit of difference on the ground? What is your honest opinion on that?

Nicholas Winterton: May I suggest that Sue Akers and Sally Ireland provide a national overview for that question before we come down to deal with Manchester?

Sue Akers: You would think, if the measures are used properly, that the communities would see a difference, because the desired effect is the prevention of violence, to which I have already alluded, and to try to get young people away from gangs and into mainstream education, or whatever else, to change their way of life. If that is successful, communities would see a difference. They would see reduced violence in their areas, which should then be calmer and nicer places to be. It is a big if, because we have all said that we would use that sparingly. If you target young people who are the most violent and who cannot be addressed by means of criminal law or other means, it would be useful.
One point we have not made, but which perhaps it would be useful to make, is that it could be used as a useful interim arrangement. When you sense that someone is clearly at high risk of serious violence, but there is insufficient evidence to go down the criminal route at the point, you could usefully get an interim arrangement whereby you seek to prevent the violence and protect individuals, but at the same time you could carry on with a plan to prosecute using the criminal law route.

Sally Ireland: I have just two points. I am sorry to keep comparing these with ASBOs, but in a way they are a more serious version of ASBOs. It is notable that about two thirds of ASBOs for children and young people are breached. High rates of breach could compromise the potential effectiveness of the orders. We are worried that we will see a high percentage of the children and young people who are subject to the orders end up in custody because they have breached them.
There is another danger with these measures, because obviously they are designed for when a child or young person is already involved in gang behaviourif they are used as a last resort, they will be deeply involvedso it is important not to emphasise such measures at the expense of effective early intervention. We do not want children to get to the point where this sort of order will be applied for against them. There is a danger that a headline piece of legislation like this from the Home Office can mask failings by other departments in mainstream services in helping to prevent children and young people from being at risk of this behaviour.

Nicholas Winterton: Thank you. We have five minutes left. I hope to get Robert Flello in on the final question, but Andrew Rosindells question is very important.

Maureen Noble: There is no greater headline than a front page stating that a 14-year-old was shot in Moss Side last night. That is the biggest headline of all. It is a dreadful headline. It gives a community no confidence whatsoever about it being a good, happy and cohesive place to live, and that it is worth making an effort. It also reflects a lack of confidence in the public agencies. We are all of the same mindwe will use this injunction sparingly. We do not, fortunately, have huge numbers of young people whom it would apply to and, if our justice and intervention services work properly, nor should we. But we need to create a mood and a message for local people, families and young people that we can and will take action when appropriate. This is part of that message.
We have a strong focus in Manchester on working with local people and saying to them, You said. We did. Local people in Moss Side tell us that they want us not only to punish and enforce against young people, but to help and assist them. I believe that this injunction, used properly and effectively, will do both of those things; it will challenge and it will support.

Nicholas Winterton: We are coming towards the end.

Jim Battle: Maureen Noble has already made the point that I was going to make.

Nicholas Winterton: Excellent.

Q 70

Andrew Rosindell: I have a quick question that is relevant to my particular brief. What do you think needs to be done within gang violence to deal with the use of animals, particularly dangerous dogs, in crime?

Nicholas Winterton: Who would like to deal with that? Jim?

Jim Battle: I think it refers to all weapons, such as knives and guns. If people are using animals as weapons, it is obviously criminal. But I think that the essence of it is about behaviour towards each other, the regulation of that behaviour, and making sure that the behaviour is acceptable to the individual as well as to the neighbourhood. It relates back to your question. It is about being able to make sure that those neighbourhoods are peaceful. If you contrast the difference between the number of violent, gang-related crimes in one neighbourhood and another, even across the road in, say, Fallowfield, which is 100 yards away, or further down in Wythenshawe or further away in Macclesfield or Middleton, it is a totally different environment and neighbourhood. Therefore, I think that the issue of gang-related behaviour has to be challenged, and I think that the definition here covers all those points.

Nicholas Winterton: Can you ask your question in 30 seconds and can our witnesses answer briefly?

Robert Flello: I will ask it in 30 seconds, but I suspect it will require a five-hour answer.

Nicholas Winterton: Robert, may I just say that we have the discretion of going slightly over time, but can you still be brief?

Q 71

Robert Flello: Thank you. I will keep it as succinct as I can. There is nothing new in gang violence, wherever you look; we have had football violence in the 1980s and the mods and the rockers fighting on Brighton beach. What has changed that means that 10-year-olds are joining gangs? I do not think that that has happened historically. The provisions are tackling the physical signs and outcomes of that, but what do we do, and what are you doing, to get to the underlying issue that is causing this problem to become a greater one? Or is it becoming greater?

Nicholas Winterton: May I suggest that Maureen Noble and Sally Ireland briefly deal with this question?

Maureen Noble: What has changed? I think that our understanding of the nature and extent of gang violence in England has changed. Gang violence in England is not the same in Manchester as it is in Birmingham or London. There are distinct differences, and we understand them.
I will talk about Manchesters particular situation. The change has been family ties and local associations. The gang culture that began 30 to 35 years ago in Manchester has grown and spread. The acceptance of violence as a means of settling scores is deeply embedded in that small but significant population. Associations with other types of crime and antisocial behaviour for that population have deepened, and those people have become less connected, in many respects, with the wider constituency.
The other issuethis may sound somewhat melodramaticis that violence breeds violence. The experience of being shot, I thinkit has never happened to me or, I hope, to anyone around this tabledoes something to you. It can create either revulsion or excitement. There are stakes for many of the young people involved. It becomes a way of life. The first time, it is difficult; after that, it is relatively straightforward and easyfrighteningly so, in some cases. Desensitisation to violence as a means by which you live your life is something that has changed.

Sally Ireland: Primarily, I think, this is a question about society and culture, so we are a little outside the scope of this hearing, but one point that I will make is that we have seen an increasing reliance, compared to the periods back in time that you discussed, on the states formal mechanisms of control to discipline the behaviour of children. Informal methods of social control of children and young people by parents, neighbours and schools have all declined, and that lack of supervision and control from more informal sources may have contributed to a culture where they are wandering the streets unsupervised and can get embroiled in all kinds of serious activity. Then it is left to the local authorities and police to respond to that.

Nicholas Winterton: I have allowed the sitting to go on past 1 oclock because that last question was important and relevant. I am glad that I did so. I thank each of our witnesses for the way that they have expressed their views and the helpful nature of the information that they have provided, which I am sure will be of particular interest to the Minister and shadow Minister. The subject is important. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses very much for the evidence that they have given us. It has been most helpful.

The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put (Standing Order No. 88).

Adjourned till this day at Four oclock.